A Reno 1999 Air Race Photo

Fatal Crash

Miss
Ashley II Crashing beyond pylon 1 after a wing and tail structural failure at
the Reno National Air Races. He had leveled out between pylon 6 and he had started
to climb so he must have known something was wrong then the starboard wing then
the tail strucure failed. From time it failed till he hit the ground was less
than two seconds. He was flying at 400+ mph at the time. You can see the main
part of the plane just above the trailer inverted, the starboard wing coming town
(trailing fuel) and the rudder / elevator above and to the right of that along
with other parts floating down. Pilot Gary Levitz was killed. He did not have
time to bail out.

Other Aviation accidents

There were three other accidents at Reno this year. One, a landing accident happenned when one Forumla I plane landed and almost ran into another. The landing pilot went left to avoid the lead plane and when the gear hit the sand to the left of the runway it pulled the plane into the brush and ripped it up badly. Pilot unhurt. A takeoff accident occured when a Yak-9 pilot lifted off too early and tip stalled the Yak. Ended up ripping the starbard wing off, gear, wiped out the engine and other damage. He too was unhurt. The last accident was when the Northern Lights saerobatic team had finished the aerial routine and were taxing back one plane ran into another. Ground visability in these planes are bad. One pilot had 17 stiches after the prop went into the cockpit and stopped around 8 inches from his head the other was unhurt. One plane was torn up pretty bad.